Medal of Honor recipient Sgt. Dakota Meyer appeared on “Late Show with David Letterman” Thursday night, and thing got loose pretty quickly. You’ve got to love “greasing the Bobcat” jokes, in particular: [HTML1] For what it’s worth, it appears Meyer is still laughing about the appearance. He posted the following message on Twitter this morning: The full episode is available here.
Browsing: Ganjgal
Last night, the messy background behind Sgt. Dakota Meyer’s Medal of Honor was reintroduced to the nation. In a 15-minute piece on “60 Minutes,” CBS reporter David Martin outlined what went wrong in the six-hour battle in Ganjgal, Afghanistan, that led to Meyer taking his life in his hands on Sept. 8, 2009, in an attempt to save as many Afghan and American forces as he could from the teeth of a well planned ambush. The clip is up here: [HTML1] Some of the details reported last night will be common knowledge to those who have tracked Ganjgal, but there…
UPDATED: A White House spokesman tells Marine Corps Times that the beer shared by Obama and Meyer was home-brewed there. It’s called White House Honey Blonde Ale. That’s pretty sweet. By now, you’ve seen the photo above. It’s President Obama having a beer yesterday with Dakota Meyer, who will become today the first living Marine in 38 years to receive the Medal of Honor. The idea was reportedly Dakota’s. When the president’s staff called Meyer over the weekend in advance of today’s ceremony, the Marine asked if he could have a beer with Obama, White House press secretary Jay Carney…
President Obama will award the Medal of Honor tomorrow afternoon to Dakota Meyer, the first living Marine in 38 years to receive the nation’s top valor award. For many, the ceremony is heavily anticipated. There are many people still recovering from the scars created in Ganjgal, Afghanistan, on Sept. 8, 2009, when the heroism of Meyer and others prevented an awful situation from becoming even worse. As it was, the battle led to the death of five U.S. service members and at least eight Afghan troops. Meyer already is in Washington, and appeared Tuesday night at the Marine Corps Scholarship…
GREENSBURG, Ky. — It has been a long journey. Dakota Meyer will receive the Medal of Honor on Sept. 15, two years after he braved enemy fire multiple times in Afghanistan in attempt to save fellow U.S. service members in Ganjgal, Afghanistan. He made it out of the valley alive, and they didn’t. It’s a tough situation to digest. Marine Corps Times readers know the story well by now — various aspects of it have led me to write three cover stories since early last year, including a profile on Meyer. With the White House announcement now official, however, I…
With the dust starting to settle, it’s time to set the record straight about Dakota Meyer, who will become the first living Marine to receive the Medal of Honor in decades. As someone who has covered the fallout of the Sept. 8, 2009, ambush in Gangjal, Afghanistan, since days after it occurred, I’ve noticed a variety of inaccuracies work their way into stories about the incident, Meyer’s service and the Medal of Honor process. Many of them cite my story last week that confirmed the award decision had been made, so it seems fair for to correct the record. Let’s…
By now, many Marine Corps Times readers have read the news that the service has recommended that a former Marine corporal receive the Medal of Honor for valor last year in eastern Afghanistan. It’s a story that we first broke last Monday online, citing a Marine source with knowledge of the awards process. It was subsequently confirmed by other Marine sources last week. The circumstances of the case should make it no surprise that former Cpl. Dakota Meyer, 22, is hesitant to discuss his actions. As we first outlined in a cover story in July, he is credited with running into…
One year ago today, a group of Marines, U.S. soldiers and Afghan security forces were pinned down in a kill zone near Ganjgal, Afghanistan, a remote village in the unforgiving, mountainous terrain of Kunar province. At this point, the basic details of what occurred that day are well known. Repeatedly denied air support and artillery by officers at a nearby forward operating base, they were left to fend for themselves against more than 100 well-entrenched insurgent fighters. Three Marines and a Navy corpsman were killed on the battlefield, and a U.S. soldier died Oct. 7, 2009, from medical complications that…
Today, Marine Corps Times published online my story outlining the heroism of Cpl. Dakota Meyer, a rifleman and scout sniper who found himself in the middle of horrific ambush in eastern Afghanistan last year that ultimately claimed the life of five U.S. troops. To get that story, I relied heavily on more than 300 pages of sworn witness statements and other documents compiled by Combined Joint Task Force 82, which conducted the investigation in Afghanistan in the days following the Sept. 8, 2009, attack in Ganjgal, a remote village in Kunar province. Even though the documents were already redacted when I…
It’s every Marine’s worst nightmare. Your buddies are pinned down in a kill zone, taking fire from three sides. No help is on the way, and every time you try to assist them, you get turned back by the massive amount of firepower unleashed by the enemy. Cpl. Dakota Meyer found himself in this very situation Sept. 8, 2009. Caught in a battle in Ganjgal, a remote village in eastern Afghanistan, he took matter into his own hands, braving a hail of enemy fire on foot to reach his buddies. Sadly, they were dead when he found them. The battle,…
